Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Dane had his first practice with his new team and coach last night. Games don't start for another couple weeks, but we are getting off to a GREAT start.

We switched leagues this year, and so far I am not regretting that decision!!! Even though Dane had a lot of fun with his 1st soccer season, it was a bit disappointing for us parents. As most can remember it was very unorganized and chaotic. I don't do well when I'm paying for a promised experience, and no one seems to know what is going on.

But, things seem to be different with this league. From the second I have registered Dane for this season I seemed to be so much more informed, and have less questions about what is going to happen. It's still early, obviously but I just get a better vibe.

So... to the practice.

Dane had SOOOO much fun. To say that he had a blast would be a total understatement. As we all know Dane can be extremely stubborn and strong willed at times, and can't be coaxed into doing things he doesn't want to do. But, he cooperated the entire practice, listened to everything the coach had him do, and was the easy going Dane. Yes, it was only the first practice, but the coach really knew how to get the kids involved and make everything fun. He found out first thing what the kids like to play with at home and ran with it. The kids were pretty much in unison when he mentioned transformers, so everything related to that. Every drill he did somehow related to them pretending they were transformers rather it be protecting their ball from the bad transformer to running and kicking the ball as fast as they could so the transformer behind them wouldn't steal their ball etc. Dane really had so much fun, and was giggling the entire time. He really enjoyed racing and kicking the ball, and had a blast when they did a mock game. To me that is what is most important. Having fun...especially at this age. I don't care if he is the best player. Or the best skilled player. I have no idea if soccer will be something he wants to do when he is older. But, in this moment it does make my heart happy to see him having a blast, running and kicking the soccer ball and learning to do things as a team.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

This weekend has been a good one. I have watched a lot of the olympics. I have to say I'm a bit obsessed. I wasn't really impressed with the opening ceremony. I lost interest while watching it pretty early on. I guess I'm just not into the British humor. And it's hard to compete with Bejing's opening, t was completely awesome. But, I'm loving watching all the swimming, diving, gymnastics etc. GO USA!

We spent the day Saturday at Palm Beach. I opted to not bring my camera so I didn't have to worry about it coming up missing while we swam. So, I didn't get any pictures of us doing our thing except for one slide pic. Just know that we had a lot of fun!! But, it was HOT. SO SO SO HOT. We had to lather up with sunscreen about every 45 minutes or so because I could just feel my skin burning. Missing that New York weather!

Then the rest of the weekend was spent watching more olympics. I'm little bummed that it isn't LIVE, because I keep seeing outcomes on the internet before we see it on tv. I feel cheated when watching it when I know if USA won or not. Ha I'm looking forward to watching the women's swimming events on Tuesday, because one of the girls competing goes to our church. Go Cammile Adams! Hope she does great and gets a medal!

Friday, July 27, 2012

We were so sad to say Goodbye, but it was time for our NY trip to come to an end. Our 1st flight was at the crack of dawn Thursday. We got up at 4:00 AM NY time..for all you Houstonians that's 3:00 for you. Whew! Early. We flew to Detroit this go round, which meant our 1st flight was SUPER short. Maybe 40 minutes. Right when the plane got up to it's highest point, they brought out the snack and drink cart, and then it was time to land. Easy Peasy flight, and Dane didn't have time to misbehave. We actually brought his booster chair on the plane on the way home like we have always done in the past, and I really think that booger was the reason the flight home was much better than the flights to NY. On the way there I had thought we didn't need it, and he was old enough to sit still in his chair without it. HA we were so wrong!

We had a very short layover again, but our gates weren't as far apart. We got to our gate in plenty of time to find out that our plane was delayed. First we were told our plane was at a different gate, we would just be delayed a few minutes. Then we were told we had no plane. Then we were told something was wrong with our plane, so we had to wait for another plane to come save the day. After about 5 different stories the worker just shrugged his shoulders and said he had no idea what was going on, and had no idea how long we would be waiting for this imaginary plane. Then after about an hour and half everyone that was suppose to be on our flight was switched to a different gate. We have no idea why, but we all just went with it and walked as a group down to this new gate. Strange. Very strange. But, we finally got out of Detroit. The flight to Houston was pretty long, about 3 hours. But, Dane did excellent. The entire flight he was perfect. I was SOOO thankful. And our dvd player came back to life, and all was good.

The last night in New York we went to the town's county fair.

We visited all the animals.

We hung out near the tractors.

This tractor was GIGANTIC. Dane fit inside the back wheel. It made Barry's big ol tractor look like a tri-cycle.

While we were hanging out at the tractors Barry and Jackie slipped away to go "look" at something. Barry came back to meet us and told us to come with him that Jackie had won a prize! We were both like a prize?? Well lo and behold Jackie had won 1st place on a quilt she had made. We had NO IDEA she had even entered in the contest. She didn't want to tell anyone in case she didn't place. We were shocked, but very proud of her quilt and winning 1st place!

Not a great picture of the quilt... it was behind a fence and in plastic so hard to see all the details of it

Dane had a blast on the rides

Grandma had no idea what she was volunteering for with this ride. It went pretty fast, seemed a bit rough and lasted forever! Dane loved it!!

Then came Dane's favorite part. I don't even know what you call it. But, basically he was hooked to a harness and these elastic bands and then he was able to bounce pretty high. He absolutely loved it. He was so giddy and excited. The worker actually let him bounce for a long time. He had a blast, and it was pretty funny to watch.

And there you have it... our week in New York in a nut shell. Well, 7 posts to be exact.

I took a lot of pictures during our week in New York, as you can see. And since this ol blog is like my memory book I want to add as many as I can, so sorry for the overload of pictures. I'd rather look back and remember all the stuff we did instead of saying I wished I had posted more pictures.

While in New York during the summer we take full advantage of the weather and hang outside as much as possible. We had one "hot" day with temperatures in the high 80's, and it might have even gotten to 90 degrees, but the humidity levels is way different so it doesn't feel anything like the misery we have here in Houston. So, even on the "hot" day Kevin and I had NO complaints. But, besides the one "hot" day the temperatures were GREAT! We even had a couple days in the high 60's, low 70's. Wonderful I tell you. Makes me long for Fall!

Dane played outside quite a bit and kicked the soccer ball around. I think he is just the cutest when running around kicking the ball trying to get it in his imaginary goal. I'm kind of glad he was showing interest since... we have signed him up for Fall Soccer again!! That is right around the corner, and I'm really excited to be doing this with a new league. More on that later.

We went bowling one morning, and it was a lot of fun. I started off strong... but then decided I didn't want to embarrass the family with how good my skills were, so started pulling back and getting gutter balls. :)

We enjoyed Grandpa's famous chocolate malts a couple evenings. Yummy!!